1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to insurance technology and more particularly to systems, machines, computer-implemented methods, and non-transitory computer medium having computer program instructions stored thereon for determining insurance policy characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Insurance is used to manage risks for uncertain losses. A company or entity selling insurance is often referred to as the “insurer” or “insurance carrier,” and the person or entity buying the insurance policy is often referred to as the “insured” or “policyholder.” The amount of money to be charged for insurance coverage is referred to as the “premium” for the insurance policy. In a traditional insurance transaction, the insured assumes a guaranteed and known relatively small loss in the form of payment (e.g., the premium payment) to the insurer in exchange for the insurer's promise to compensate, or “indemnify” the insured in the case of a financial loss. A contract, or “insurance policy,” details the coverage, or the conditions and circumstances under which the insured will be financially compensated by the insurer.
In the context of auto insurance, for example, a person may purchase an auto insurance policy from an auto insurance carrier and the auto insurance carrier will be responsible for some or all of losses associated with events covered by the auto insurance policy, such as the person being involved in a car wreck. Similar insurance policies are available for any variety of conditions and circumstances. In the context of crop insurance, for example, an agricultural producer, such as a farmer, rancher or the like, may purchase a crop insurance policy from a crop insurance carrier and the crop insurance carrier will be responsible for some or all of losses associated with events covered by the crop insurance policy, such as the loss of crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought and floods, or the loss of revenue due to low prices, such as declines in the prices of agricultural commodities.
In some instances, supplemental insurance policies are available to further manage risks for uncertain losses. Supplemental insurance policies may cover losses that fall outside of other insurance policies. For example, where a framer has a primary crop insurance coverage that covers some of the losses associated with their crops, the farmer may have an additional, supplemental policy that covers some or all of the losses that are not covered by the primary crop insurance. The amounts paid under supplemental insurance policies depend on the conditions and circumstances defined by the policies. These conditions and circumstances can include whether or not payment is due to the insured under the primary insurance policy and how much the payment is under the primary insurance policy. Accordingly, the factors that contribute to payments under insurance policies can be very complex. As premiums for insurance are typically based on the risk associated with the payments, determining premiums can be very complex as well. As a result of these complexities, there is often a delay (e.g., hours, days or weeks) associated with the process for determining a premium and, thus, an insurance agent may not be able to readily provide potential clients with premium amounts, such as while the agent is with the client “at the kitchen table” negotiating with the client. Unfortunately, as a result of these types of delays, clients may become disinterested while waiting for the premium to be provided and may not purchase the insurance policy. Moreover, agents and clients may not be able to quickly determine premium amounts based on edits to the policy terms due to the delays associate with determining the premium amounts. Similar delays and issues may be present when calculating indemnity amounts for a loss under an insurance policy. As a result, existing clients may become frustrated with the indemnity process and may elect to switch to another insurance carrier.